Life in Holland

in the 1600's

Leeuwenhoek Today

Leeuwenhoek had no sons or brothers who survived to have children, so the surname is rare today. All the descendants come from the family of van Leeuwenhoek's uncle Huijch. Two of Huijch's sons, Lambrecht and Maerten, lived long enough to have sons. In summer 2009, the Dutch telephone books listed only one private person with the "van" (an elderly widow who lives near Amsterdam) and about two dozen without it.

There are a handful of businesses named after Leeuwenhoek, and many, many streets. The Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Ziekenhuis, the cancer hospital in Amsterdam, was founded over a hundred years ago and named after him because "cancer" was a shunned word. The hospital is today the most common reminder of his name in everday Dutch life.

a plaque (above left; click to enlarge) on the wall of the building next to the building that replaced Leeuwenhoek's Gulden Hoofd.

a plaque (right; click to enlarge) on the corner of the Oude Deft and the Boterbrug that was placed where they mistakenly thought Leeuwenhoek's house stoof.

a small display case outside the room that he tended in the Stadhuis.

And there is the memorial in the Oude Kerk.

In a recent public poll to determine the "Greatest Dutch" men and women, Leeuwenhoek finished fourth, ahead of other top-ten finishers Erasmus, Anne Frank, Rembrandt, and Vincent van Gogh. While the press coverage referred to Leeuwenhoek's discoveries as baanbrekende, pioneering, it also called him ongeschoolde hobbyist, an uneducated dilettante.

In 1877, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences established the Leeuwenhoek Medal, awarded once each decade to the person judged to have made the most significant contributions to the "advancement of microbiology". Louis Pasteur won it in 1895.

Leeuwenhoek medal

A prestigious medal initiated by the RoyalNetherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1877and transferred to the Royal Netherlands Society ofMicrobiology in 2013.

The medal is awarded to a scientist for his / herexcellent, high impact, highly relevant microbiologyresearch during the last 10-12 years.